


Roleplay

by TrashKing (Vanya_Deyja)



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Romance, idiots sort themselves out, without homicide for once, yotsuba but Light has his memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 15:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30057669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanya_Deyja/pseuds/TrashKing
Summary: "Pretend you're Kira.""I'm not--""For the purpose of this conversation pretend you are. Please."5am, in their suite at taskforce headquarters, handcuffed together, L proposes a thought exercise.
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Comments: 18
Kudos: 137





	Roleplay

Light is tired. Maybe that’s why L makes his move?

Light knows, given half a chance, L will kick a man when he’s down. Light is under no illusions, having known L for awhile now, that L is not so much a ‘good’ man as an efficient one. He’s equally as ruthless as Light and his interests lie in games of intellect not professions of justice like Soichiro. Light recognizes the differences between L and his father but that doesn’t make L any less compelling or any less talented as the superior detective.

Light stirred, restless, at four am and couldn’t get back to sleep. L accompanied him to the bathroom and Light, once returned to the bed, tried to roll over and resume his eight hours of sleep but no such luck. For a while they’re both scrolling their phones in the darkness of their luxurious taskforce suite the chain between the cuffs warm under the sheets from a night absorbing their latent body heat.

When the chain is hot it feels almost invisible.

Gently L puts his phone down on the bedside table and, shifting languidly, curls over the top of Light. Light freezes, stomach knotting under his skin, as L’s arm hugs around his waist under the blankets and the detective leans over him on his elbow. He moves with all the intimacy of long time lover and, phone in his hand, Light keeps the little piece of smart tech between their faces for as long as he can.

“Talk to me?” L whispers.

“What about?” Light murmurs, not cold just absent mined.

L fishes the phone out Light’s hand and plops it on his bedside table, still hooked into its charging cord. His arm secures around Light again and Light fights the way his insides churn under L’s tired eyes.

Light’s not a virgin, not at all, but he’s never been _intimate_ with someone. Not emotionally anyways. And the way L looks at him right now, like he knows him, like they’re two pieces of the same puzzle and they’ve lain in this bed every night for ten imaginary years… It’s distracting and disarming.

“I want to try something.” L murmurs, voice just barely audible over the hum of the heater rushing warm air into the suite. “Thought experiment.”

Light isn’t sure where to put his hands so he steadies them on L’s upper arms and shoulders. Partially just to put them somewhere but also to maintain a little distance between himself and the detective if things get any weirder.

“Okay,” Light murmurs, shifting his legs under the blankets. “What’s the experiment?”

“Pretend you’re Kira for a second,” L murmurs.

“I’m _not_ Ki—”

“I’m not saying you are,” L whispers.

Light’s indignation dies in his throat.

Since when does L give him so much leeway?

“I’m just saying; _pretend_ you are,” L explains, “just for this discussion.”

Light purses his lips, tentative. “Okay,” he gives an inch. “I’ll bite.”

“Why do it?” L murmurs.

Light stews instinctually.

Should he lie? Lying is easier but without any evidence does it matter what he says in a hypothetical? Can L get anything useful from his answers if he--?

“Don’t think about it so much,” L nudges, “just talk how you imagine he would talk.”

“I thought you knew why I do it?” Light challenges, bitter for a flourish of a second.

“I’ve made assumptions,” L admits openly, “I want to hear your reasons.”

Light can’t manage to look at L all of a sudden.

“To make a better world,” Light grinds out softly. “One where bad things happen to bad people.”

“It’s simple,” L supposes but it’s not loaded like an insult or a challenge. It’s just a statement, a prompt.

“That’s why its so effective,” Light murmurs, watching L’s clavicle rather than his face. “Good people feel emboldened, bad people feel afraid. Create and maintain that scenario and you don’t need to do much else to force change.”

L hums, listening.

“You’ve killed law enforcement too though,” L notes.

“They were a threat,” Light responds levelly, “I know you well enough now to know you’d kill people who threatened your life too.”

“You’re right,” L admits, “I would.”

Light feels strange.

His chest is tight, breath fluttering in his ribcage.

Why are they having this conversation? This conversation they can never really have?

“You haven’t always had this power,” L supposes, thumb rubbing circles into the indentation of Light’s waist through his shirt all of a sudden. Slow and repetitive motions. “If you received it now, now we know each other, would you talk to me about it first?”

“Talk to you…?” Light stalls, brain skittering messily.

“About how to use it, what to do with it,” L elaborates.

“Are we friends in this alternate timeline?” Light snorts, but that’s hard with his throat so tense and breathless.

“Better,” L whispers, leaning down to rest their foreheads together. “We’re whatever we are now.”

Light tests the tension of his hands on L’s shoulders but doesn’t push him away.

“I can’t go back in time,” Light murmurs, eyes half lidded with the understanding there’s nothing to see in this darkened room in his limited field of vision but L’s face.

“Different question,” L permits. “You know me pretty well now. In that kind of way were you don’t need to say a lot to know a lot. Do you imagine I’m a good person?”

“No,” Light whispers. “You’re a clever person but you’re not as simple as that. You don’t do anything just because it’s the right thing to do. That’s never the reason.”

“What are my reasons?” L prompts. “For doing anything?”

“Spite and greed,” Light toys with the fabric of L’s shirt between his fingers. “Not in a bad way but you’re driven by getting hands on the things you want and pissing off the people who challenge you.”

“I’m not in any position to judge you,” L agrees. “What do you suppose is a better long-term investment for me? Catching you or keeping you.”

Light barely needs to think to answer. “I think you want both, honestly, but I don’t think you need anyone else to know you’ve caught me to feel satisfied. Is that…?”

“Exactly.” L whispers. “Winning is one thing but I would be cutting off my nose to spite my face, in some ways, if I let myself or anyone else destroy you. Destroy this. Do you think I want this to end? Ever?”

“This…?” Light clarifies.

L’s hand squeezes the curve of his waist, solid and human. L’s sharp nose brushes against his like they’re two nesting monsters and in the darkness his warmth feels comforting and close and conspiratorial. Safe.

“We are the only two people who understand each other,” L murmurs. “And that means we are the only two people who matter.”

Light drags his teeth along his bottom lip silently.

“I have waited my whole life for someone like you,” L promises. “I am not stupid enough to surrender you for something as petty as mass homicide.”

“All those people…” Light waves.

“And nothing they want, or feel, matters more to me than my own happiness.” L dismisses coldly. “Can you honestly tell me you think I feel otherwise?”

Light inhales, softly, between his teeth and forces himself to laugh raggedly on the exhale.

“What’s the point of this?” He challenges. “Your master plan is to seduce Kira?”

“Do you really want to run away, or do you want to finish this?” L replies curtly. 

“I’m not…” Light fumbles, letting the words die in his throat.

L’s thumb rubs another circle into his waist.

Light swallows dryly.

“Do you really want to see all that in someone? That coldness?” Light murmurs. “Are you really willing to fall asleep next to a murderer every night for the rest of your life?”

“You underestimate how many sins I would bury to sleep next to you forever,” L replies certainly. “That’s why you hesitate to trust me; you think I’m better than I am.”

“Maybe I’m hoping we’re both better than we seem in the dark,” Light slides his arms up and around L’s neck, trying to hide the way his fingers shake.

“Give up on that,” L urges, “and I can catch you.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Only the first time.” L promises.

Light listens to the thrum of the heater over the thumping of his heart.

“Have you ever seen a Shinigami?”

“Hmm?” L lifts his forehead from Light’s.

“Would you like to?” Light whispers.


End file.
